Large San Antonio corporations have turned to Helen Hicks Groos for advice on dealing with dangerous situations, from international intrigue to corporate espionage.
How dangerous? There are life–and–death issues, such as safeguarding company executives who have been kidnapped abroad. There are criminal and civil liability issues, such as addressing the need to protect gigabytes of sensitive, private information about consumers of a healthcare provider or bank; information that can easily fit on a laptop, PDA or a flash drive small enough to hide in the palm of a hand, or that can be "hacked" by computer–savvy thieves operating half–a–world away.
These are some of the increasingly complex risks facing companies operating on the world stage. Executives at some of the biggest companies in the world ask for Groos' counsel to help them manage that risk.
Groos is a Certified Insurance Counselor who specializes in sophisticated risk management services for large businesses that often have international interests and holdings. She holds the title of Managing Director with Wortham Insurance & Risk Management – San Antonio, making her a partner in the largest privately held insurance broker in the Alamo City.
Until just recently, the company operated under the name Eichlitz, Dennis, Wray & Westheimer, a firm that has been in continuous operation here since 1852. The powerhouse full–service insurance brokerage and risk management firm changed its name this year to better reflect its expanded capabilities thanks to a 6–year–old merger with Texas largest privately held insurance broker, Wortham Insurance & Risk Management.
People often think of the insurance business in terms of healthcare coverage, life insurance or property and automobile protection. Groos, however, deals with complex coverage issues involving "large centers of capacity," or cash reserves for financial obligations so massive that insurance providers in the United States can't begin to cover them. Groos often turns to specialized brokers and security consultants in London, Bermuda, and other international markets to provide the best protection against risk for her clients.
"The U.S. markets have a certain amount of capacity for each risk and clients with numerous, high–valued global facilities often cannot get all the protection they need in the United States," Groos said.
Roger Hemminghaus, who was Chairman and CEO of Diamond Shamrock Inc. and Ultramar Diamond Shamrock Corp. (now energy giant Valero Corp.) for 12 years, said Groos was instrumental in helping the company's risk management group to place tens of millions of dollars worth of insurance coverage.
"There's really no risk management problem that's too complex or big for Helen to tackle," Hemminghaus said. "She builds trust with her clients, and her relationship with the underwriters must be to be very good, because she was able to get the coverage we needed at prices we thought were reasonable, considering the marketplace."
Hemminghaus, who has known Groos for nearly two decades, credited her for getting him directly involved in the insurance marketing process. "To help manage risk and control costs, Helen would frequently get the key people at our company together with the insurance underwriters, and we found that beneficial," he said.
"We have excellent relationships with underwriters, and we can bring the person to the table who wrote the policy," Groos said. "That's a big advantage over just having a couple of claims people talking to each other. When it comes to a complicated claim, you don't want a generalist claims person trying to interpret the policy."
Groos' success in a field dominated by men is a testament to her abilities and experience. She is a San Antonio native who graduated from Alamo Heights High School before attending the University of Texas at Austin, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology.
Prior to joining Wortham in 2005, Helen spent 23 years in the insurance brokerage business with the two largest publicly–held global insurance brokerage firms handling complex risk management accounts.
Groos says there are significant differences between working for a publicly–held firm and Wortham, Texas' largest independent insurance broker. One major difference is Wortham's main responsibility is to their clients, not stockholders. "We are not guided by quarterly results," she said. "Our concern is not the analysts' opinion of our performance on a quarter–by–quarter basis."
That experience, coupled with global resources she now can tap into through Wortham, allows Groos to concentrate on her highly specialized field and keep up with the most current trends. Growing risk in unstable regions of the world makes political risk insurance and K&R (kidnap and ransom) coverage hot topics in the industry.
"For example, if a company has factories in a country where government officials decided to privatize a business in the name of the state," Groos says. "Hopefully, they have political risk insurance to cover that loss." Some of the specialized coverage companies often need include confiscation and/or expropriation of assets, and contract repudiation/frustration.
Managers and executives who work abroad are targets for drug lords and tribal war lords looking to make money off their companies, Groos said. "If you have K&R coverage, the insurance company not only pays the ransom, it has professionals on staff who can negotiate the best strategy for getting you out safely."
